


Formation, Breakdown, Reformation

by montivagantly_writing



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Broken Earth Series - N. K. Jemisin
Genre: But That's All You Get, But You Should Still Read It It's Really Good, Don't Have to Know Canon, Gen, I'll Explain The Broken Earth Stuff, Orogenic Reader in Earth-616, Other, Reader Has Powers, Reader Is An Orogene, Reader has abilities, Reader is Above 5th Ring, Working title, powered reader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2020-12-17 06:00:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21049466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/montivagantly_writing/pseuds/montivagantly_writing
Summary: NOTE: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO KNOW ABOUT THE BROKEN EARTH TRILOGY. I'LL EXPLAIN IN THE STORYDespite a penchant for saving the lives of thousands of people, the possible destructive capabilities of any Orogene are as clear and damnable as rust, and equally as despised. As you said: Orogenes were a subset on your planet, and not by any natural means of selection.So that brings you to where you are now. Living, working, and more or less thriving in your independent life as a denizen of Harlem, New York (turns out coming from a planet that uses precious and semi-precious stones as currency can get you pretty far in the monetary world). You are well off, more or less. You have friends. A job. Stability. So it’s understandable to say that, when the Battle of New York happens, you are not having it.orReader is an Orogene living on Earth-616 when the battle of New York happens, things go from there, and Loki is an impulsive shithead





	1. You, at the beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which background in established, the Chitauri break the sky, and you are _not_ having it.__

Let’s get one thing straight, here: you are an alien. Not one from across any borders, although you haven’t got the slightest clue about Earth’s interstellar policies. You’re not even sure if it _has_ interstellar policies. Maybe it should be something you concern yourself more with, considering it’s a topic that _directly applies to you and your wellbeing_, but when it comes to fucks to give, beggars can’t be choosers. So you’re an alien. The ‘galaxy far, far away’ type. Even you’re not sure of its exact name, having grown up with English voices clouding your head. It’s something like _Degom_ or _Djejom_ or something with too many soft ‘g’ sounds to come naturally to you. Your parents were born there, and their parents, and their parents’ parents, and so on up along the family tree to the first bacterium that had infested the planet’s surface. All you remembered from that place was a wide, empty sky, and the whorl of blue that your grandmother insists brought the two of you here. And here?

Here was Earth. Here was the big green, the Third Planet From the Sun, humanity’s homeworld. And it was on this homeworld that you felt right at home because, despite being of flesh that belongs thousands of light years away (you think. space is fucking huge), you look the same. The same as every other human walking, talking, and shitting on the face of planet Earth. It is your home, for all intents and purposes, and your home it will stay.

Most of what you know from the great Before(™) is from your grandmother, Gabby. Her real name is Gabbro, but that sort of name didn’t seem to fly here, so Gabby it was. She told you of a word constantly in motion. She told you of a world prone to shakes and Seasons and the End of the World every other Tuesday. A world whose greatest civilizations were built for peak survival, not for beauty. A world whose greatest civilizations never expected to live past a thousand years. She told you of a world with floating, monolithic obelisks haunting the skies, immaterial and as dismissable as a particularly puffy cloud. She told you of a world that, despite its beauty, its magic, was driven to obliterate every iota of life that crawled about its surface.

It was never like it was with the stories told to the children of this planet. You never stopped believing. There was nothing to _believe_, only to know. You knew this place of earthquakes off this planet’s puny Richter Scale and opalescent floating crystals because of the feel of the ground, the warm pulse of earth far below your feet, and most convincingly, the extra pair of sensory organs nestled at the back of your skull. Your _sessapinae_, the lobed organ just above your brain-stem that gives you and your grandmother the capability to control the earth. You are what your people call an Orogene. A subset of your home planet’s predominant race, only made a subset through years of confinement and inexorably slow genocide. All of your planet’s inhabitants (well, _almost_ all, but you’re not actually too sure about that; we’ll get to it later) possess sessapinae, but the sessapinae of Orogenes are heightened, more developed. This evolutionary leap tunes them, tunes you, into the calls and perturbations of the earth.

Your grandmother began training you in the ways of this earth since you were old enough to understand such orders. She says that she has gone softer in your training than she was trained, softer than Orogenes surviving childhood were ever trained back home, but that the rusters over there had had it all wrong, anyhow. That’s why so few of them ever made it through half a Season.

Another thing you had come to understand over the years is that the Seasons on your planet, and the seasons on this one, were two very different things. Back on your home planet, the word Season was synonymous with apocalypse. A Season was a massive upsurge of the fires under earth, a heave of the ground that sends tectonic plates quivering, ripping open fault lines and pouring nuclear winters into the burning skies for decades. Seasons were semi-regular cataclysms that would periodically decimate the stability and population of the planet’s surface. Needless to say, when you first learned that Earth had four seasons every year, you were an inconsolable mess for hours. The only coms that ever survived more than one Season were ones with at least a semi-healthy Orogene population, not that the leadership would ever admit it. Orogenes were what kept civilizations on the living side of things during shakes. Every Orogene, down to the smallest infant, could instinctively quell shakes that came their way.

_Any toddler can move a mountain_, your grandmother would say. _It takes a master to shift a pebble_.

Despite this penchant for saving the lives of thousands of people, the possible destructive capabilities of any Orogene are as clear and damnable as rust, and equally as despised. As you said: Orogenes were a subset on your planet, and not by any natural means of selection.

So that brings you to where you are now. Living, working, more or less thriving in your independent life as a denizen of Harlem, New York (turns out coming from a planet that uses precious and semi-precious stones as currency can get you pretty far in the monetary world). You are well off, more or less. You have friends. A job. Stability. So it’s understandable to say that, when the Battle of New York happens, you are not having it.

It’s a Friday, and you’ve taken the day off the clean up around the house. You’ve watered your plants (indoor, of course. Who in New York has space for a garden?), changed out the batteries on your grow lights, made your bed, done the laundry, the works. And some jackass aliens have the _nerve_ to invade. Granted, they were _aliens_, and that’s unbelievable enough on its own to excuse their actions. Before today, you hadn’t been sure any other beings _existed_ besides you and your grandmother, let alone any who knew about this world. Other than that, you had been having a pretty good day. So when the sky splits open, there’s a healthy amount of pissed off swirling around with your fear.

You drop the vacuum when your T.V. flicks on, a skin-prickling siren rising from it. A deep, mechanical voice accompanies the klaxon to tell you to stay inside and follow basic earthquake procedures. Find a doorway, a basement, a particularly sturdy table, and cower. You _would_ be perfectly fine with cowering, if it wasn’t for the fact that the vibrations of the earth beneath your feet seem to be pulling you towards the chaos. You can feel the tremors at the forefront of your awareness, drawing you deep into the earth and the raging fire within.

This may seem like a very artistic rendering of something that others would simply refer to as “kind of an earthquake, or something”, but to you it is more. Much, much more. As you mentioned, you are an Orogene. You can control the earth. Terrakinesis. Geo-manipulation. Geo_thermal_-manipulation. Earth transmutation. Call it what you will. No name changed what you could do. And the true _extent_ of what you could do was what the draw of the earth was trying to compel you to show.__

_ _In an automatic motion, you shut off the vacuum and push it to the wall, laying it down so it couldn’t fall over in a shake. You look out the window, then to the T.V. still blaring a message of warning, then at the inviting reinforced door frame of your living room, then back out the window. The window that gives you a spectacular view of the Manhattan interior, and the jagged hole in the sky, spiking with wild blue energy. Currently, it’s shitting out what you can only equate to something out of a high-budget Tremors spinoff. A giant, armored worm squeezes itself through the opening, cracking open its too-wide maw and crashing into a building… then out the other side. You let out a long-suffering sigh and cast your gaze upwards, shrugging your arms in a helpless ‘_why me?_’ gesture. You shake your head and grimace, swaying slightly as another vibration shakes the ground. “Ah, hell,” you say, and then run full tilt out the front door. Like an absolute idiot._ _

_ _\-----_ _

_ _You admit to yourself that you’ve made a mistake when you physically cannot move yourself forward at any pace above a crawl. Maybe running the two and a half miles it takes to get you into Manhattan proper at full speed wasn’t the brightest of ideas, but there are aliens coming through the sky, so you give yourself a break._ _

_ _On this break, where you’re breathing far heavier than you should be, you think about all of the not-the-brightest-ideas you’ve had in the last ten minutes. Fight some aliens. Check, bad idea. Run. At all. Equally as idiotic. Leave your house in the _first_ place. An absolute imbecilic move. Really, you shouldn’t expect it to get any better from this point on. Aliens, remember? So you take a deep breath. And another. And some more, you’re still winded._ _

_ _And then you stab your awareness deep into the earth._ _

_ _You focus your energy, your earthen sense, into a fine point, a deep-cast line that you use to draw heat from the rock below you. You use this grasp on the strata for your first good idea so far. You take firm hold of a wide chunk of the rock beneath you and yank upwards. A column of strong Manhattan schist follows your will, and you kneel, bracing yourself. The schist breaks the surface of the soil in an explosion of dirt and uprooted grasses and careens upward, carrying you with it. In the space of two gut-wrenching breaths, you’re high enough to move above the buildings, granted you don’t fall to your death first._ _

_ _Okay, so maybe this wasn’t such a brilliant idea, you think with a touch of self-reprimand. What were you really expect to do? Turn yourself into a platform game, jump along these pillars until you reach the inner city?_ _

_ _You sigh and realize this is exactly what you had planned to do when you called the schist up underneath you. There’s an explosion from somewhere up ahead, and the ensuing shock wave is almost enough to knock you from your perch. You’ve made a horrendous mistake, and now you’re facing the horrendous consequences, but you’ll be damned if you sit on your ass while horrendous things happen to good people. Not if you can do anything about it. So, before the rush of righteous motivation can leave you, you pull another column of schist from the earth and jump. And if you’re amazed when you stick the landing, no punk ass gymnast in the world can hold it against you._ _

_ _\-----_ _

_ _Once you get the hang of it, it’s easier than you would have ever thought to platform yourself to your destination. You don’t let yourself think as you move, because thinking would mean accepting the four stories from you to the ground, so you let yourself fall into the rhythm of it. You pull a pillar up, jump to it, run along its length, use that time to thrust the previous one back down into the earth, pull up another, and repeat. Up, jump, down, repeat._ _

_ _As death-defying and destructive as your mode of transportation is (you regret your lack of mask, reasoning that you can’t be sued for damage if no one knows your face), it gets you where you need to go, and soon enough you’ve reached the epicenter of the invasion. You don’t truly notice your proximity until you reflexively drop the column you’re standing on to avoid running face first into the jetski-esque ship hurtling towards you. The sudden shift brings your stomach up into your throat; you’ve never been particularly fond of rollercoasters for exactly this reason. You whip around to get a closer look at the craft that almost took your head off._ _

_ _It looks almost bug-like in construction, with a chitinous frame and an even spikier rider. The rider is, most definitely, an alien._ _

_ _You realize with a jolt that the craft has pulled a sloppy U-turn and is now headed your direction. Not just in your vicinity, like it was before, but truly dead-on. It’s speeding towards you at an impossible pace, and your reaction is instantaneous. Your column drops the rest of the way down until you’re once again standing on the broken earth (lol reference sorry). You shunt your senses back down into the earth, and what you pull up this time isn’t a column. It’s a jagged shaft of gun-metal-gray phyllite that gleams in the harsh sun. In half a breath, the gleaming rock has speared through the oncoming ship in an explosion of fire and exotic metals. Another plate of schist blurs up into a shield stance in front of you to deflect the spray of shrapnel._ _

_ _This all happens in less than five seconds, and once it’s over, you drop to your hands and knees. The violent protrusions of rock around you remain standing, until your force them back down with a grimace of effort. The burst of defense shouldn’t have taken as much out of you as it did, but now you’re combating with the cold fingers of shock that you now feel creeping across your form. Your breaths are too fast, you distantly realize, and you’re shaking. On instinct, you let your awareness fall into the earth._ _

_ _The warm, solid familiarity of it brings you back into yourself enough to begin the process of calming down. It doesn’t really work, but you manage to time your breathing with the slow undulations of the earth. The natural rhythm calms your tremors, as well, and you pull your mind back into yourself. The battle seems to be holding its breath when you return, and you are greeted with half a moment of blessed silence._ _

_ _Then you hear a scream, and you are sprinting down a side street. When you round the corner, you immediately throw yourself backwards as a spray of dirt covers you. You open your eyes and are greeted by the backs of two of the chitinous aliens. You immediately freeze as one shoots a bright beam into the ground, sending another shower of earth and asphalt into the air. There are more screams, and that’s when you see the crowd of people opposite the aliens._ _

_ _You curse under your breath at the 40 or so people pressed into the broken remnants of a diner. There are a handful of brave - or idiotic, you think - people standing in front of the shop, brandishing broken chair legs and pieces of glass they’ve wrapped with cloth. At some point, the windows of the shop had exploded outwards, and now coat the sidewalk with a glimmering sheet of glass. The five people are helpless against the two aliens, who you can only assume are taking amusement in scaring the terrified crowd._ _

_ _They are each brandishing a nasty sort of rifle, laser-tag-esque in design and radiating a bright blue glow. They occasionally thrust the guns forward, or gnash their too-wide jaws, watching with choked laughs as the crowd flinches away._ _

_ _You see crying, dirt smeared toddler held tight against a woman’s chest, the child’s short afro matted with blood and grime. His mother is also crying, but a fierce fury fills her gaze as she glares at the two aliens, tear tracks cutting through the dust lightening her cheeks. She looks at you as you round the corner, and you can feel her fury bleed into you over the distance. It burns like a vein of garnet through the ground to you, and it burns away the remaining vestiges of shock still clinging to you._ _

_ _Your ensuing actions take but half a breath._ _

_ _You focus on the ground beneath the two aliens, and, with a flick of your head, a sheet of shale slices up through the earth, up through the asphalt, and up through the two aliens before you. A thick spray of viscous, dark purple blood bursts into the air and streams down the shale plate. The aliens twitch for merely a half second before stilling completely. There is a moment of tense silence as you and the crowd watch the dead aliens for any movement. Eventually, one of the makeshift guards of the diner steps forward, looking at you with a cautious incredulity._ _

_ _You’re panting, you realize absently, and you straighten up, wiping a spattering of blood from your face before moving forward as well. “Take the guns,” you say, the authority in your voice surprising even yourself. When no one moves, you gesture to the pieces of wood and glass acting as weapons. “They’ll do more damage than what you’ve got, anyway.”_ _

_ _A woman holding a wrapped piece of glass moves towards the two carcasses. She’s tall, and dark, and has a no-nonsense determination set to her jaw that you desperately wish you could emulate. She inspects the bodies for a long, quiet moment, then punches one of the dead forms with a left hook hard enough to make the thing’s head bang on the rock wall. She spits on it, then takes the dropped rifle. She turns it over in her hands, gives an appreciative nod, and looks up to you. “Thank you,” she says to you, and her voice is strong with conviction. “You just saved all our collective asses.”_ _

_ _You laugh weakly and shrug. “Comes with the aliens, I guess,” you quip._ _

_ _She chuckles and gives you a nod. “Good luck,” she says._ _

_ _You meet her gaze. “Thank you,” you say, and your voice doesn’t sound nearly as scared as you feel._ _

_ _The woman turns from you and hands the rifle to the man who stepped forward first, before taking the other one. The two begin to confer, and the rest of the diner’s populous nervously filter into the open, gawking at the stone you’ve pulled from the ground, and the two dead aliens impaled on its edge._ _

_ _Suddenly, you remember the ship you downed, and you turn and sprint back to it. Two guns aren’t nearly enough to protect a group that size, and hopefully this ship’s rider was armed as well. You approach the wreck cautiously, pulling a small shaft of mica up into your hand and breaking it off low to the ground. You brandish your weapon in front of you and edge up to the smoking wreckage._ _

_ _The alien rider is in two pieces on the ground, the spike you had used to destroy the shift effectively acting as a giant guillotine from the ground up. Nausea begins to churn in your stomach, but you swallow it down. The scene is foreign enough that you can imagine it to be a movie-set, the corpse nothing but an _extremely_ detailed prop. Holding this image in your mind, you creep up to the thing. You spot a rifle and let out a breath you didn’t even realize you were holding and gingerly pick the weapon up. It doesn’t seem to be broken in any way, and you hope for the best as you continue searching the wreckage. You search yields you two more unexpected successes in the form of another rifle and a smaller, pistol-like device similar to its larger cousin. You drop your mica spear to accommodate the extra load, and make your way back to the diner. At a walk this time, as not to potentially disrupt the guns you carry._ _

_ _The woman who thanked you is pleasantly surprised when you show up with three more guns._ _

_ _“I downed a ship back there,” you offer in the way of an explanation. “Two won’t be enough.”_ _

_ _She gives you a thorough onceover and you flush, shifting awkwardly under her scrutiny. “You’re strong,” she says, and now you can see the bottom of marine corps tattoo peeking out from under her sleeve. She takes the rifles from you, drawing your attention again. “Don’t die out there, okay?” She asks._ _

_ _You nod, although the set to her jaw suggests that she’s no more confident about the odds of survival than you are. She offers a grim smile before turning back to the crowd, giving the rifles to two more of the impromptu guard._ _

_ _You realize she’s left the pistol with you, and you unthinkingly weave through the crowd to find the mother from before._ _

_ _She’s singing to her child, hiding the carnage from his eyes, and doesn’t look up until you clear your throat. She flinches at the sound in reflex, turning the boy away from you before it registers that you’re no threat._ _

_ _Before she can say anything, you hold the pistol out to her. “Here,” you say. “You need it more than I do.”_ _

_ _She holds your gaze for a moment before nodding and accepting the gun. She looks at her child, who seems to be asleep on her chest, and mouths a silent ‘thank you’._ _

_ _You accept it with a tired smile and turn back into the crowd. You keep your head down as you walk through them, crossing the street and turning another corner. An empty street greets you, and you collapse against the side of the nearest building. A wave of tremors passes through you, thankfully brief, and you drop your head to your knees._ _

_ _Terrible idea, you tell yourself scathingly. You’re not a hero, what are you doing? You raise your head to look at the writhing sky, flinching from explosions that speckle its smoky blue. No, you weren’t a hero. But you had just saved nearly four dozen people, so maybe you were just getting started._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone,  
This is the first real series I've ever attempted, so I apologize if my updates aren't as regular as I plan them to be. On the topic of updates, I plan to update monthly. Sorry about the long wait, but hopefully it will give me plenty of time to write and you guys will know when to come back. Even if you haven't read the Broken Earth Trilogy, or haven't finished it, please still read this! You can treat it as a powered reader fic, and since the Avengers will be just as confused, hopefully everything will be explained. I'll mark TBE spoilers if they happen. If you HAVEN'T read TBE, I highly recommend it! It is an incredible trilogy, and I think everyone needs to read it.  
Thank you so much for reading (both the story and this XXL paragraph)! I can't think of a witty closing remark so just bye!


	2. Tony, at the beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tony says a bad language word and you get a nickname.

When aliens invade New York, Tony Stark is already not having a good day. He’s had to fight a god (_two_ gods, but who’s counting?), Loki’s flying monkeys destroyed the Helicarrier, Coulson was dead, and to top it all off, now there was a freaking portal spewing alien diarrhea in the middle of Manhattan. So, all in all, things kinda sucked.

He swerves to avoid a speeding alien cruiser and fires another volley of missiles into the cloud of swarming aliens. It once again has little effect, as more and more of the small ships pour out to fill the void he had made. He likens them to a disturbed nest of wasps: good for absolutely nothing, and annoying as hell if you piss even _one_ of them off. Or even if you don’t.

He curses and banks sharply away from the portal, heading back towards his tower. He flips around to face the portal once again and fires two more shots. “Hey,” he shouts, firing a single missile. “Over here, asswipes.” A crowd of the aliens angrily turn towards him, speeding through the debris of their comrades to follow the source of the explosion. Tony smirks and flips away again. A burst of static in his headset marks the arrival of the Quinjet and he dives, sending a handful of ships crashing into the pavement.

“Stark,” Natasha’s voice crackles to life. “We’re heading North East.”

Tony rolls his eyes and pulls up sharply, losing a few more the pavement below. “What, did you stop for drive-through?” He turns towards the tower. “Swing up Park, I'm gonna lay 'em out for you,” he says. He banks around the tower and swoops low again, his flight path taking him past an incensed Thor trying to beat the shit out of Loki, and a much calmer Loki trying to beat the shit out of Thor. Smirking to himself, Tony fires two small, targeted missiles at the dubbed Reindeer Games before rocketing back up and away.

As he races forward, JARVIS yanking him out of the way of too-close calls, he sees the Quinjet out of the corner of his eye, and grins. A camera on the back of the suit grants him the beautiful sight of the Quinjet, weapons hot and ready, ready to lay waste to some alien asses. As soon as clears the blast radius, Natasha opens fire on the line of aliens behind him. He decides that the sounds of their ships exploding is the best thing that’s happened to him all day. He’s still basking in the glory of the moment when JARVIS interrupts him.

“Sir,” the AI butler announces. “We have more incoming.”

Tony sighs and comes to a stop in the air. “Fine,” he says, “Let’s keep them occupied.” He charges up a round of laser pulses and rockets off back towards the portal.

At over 100 miles an hour, Tony should have known to more carefully watch his surroundings. He _did_ know, but a streak of untouchability when it comes to kicking alien ass tends to soften one’s defenses. This confidence is what lands an explosion of force to his back, sending him careening into a gleaming office building.

The mirrored windows shatter in a glittering array of laminated glass as he crashes through them. Luckily, the particular floor he obliterates has been evacuated, and so he is able to slam through the cubicles with no human damage. As he skids to a stop, he snaps out an order to JARVIS to buy the building and all its associates. He swings to his feet, then blasts himself back out of the hole he’s made.

Three Chitauri are buzzing around the building, seeming to be congratulating each other in a manner that is distinctly reminiscent of frat boys. So, Tony joins in on the celebration in the only way he knows how. He fires small rockets from each hand, switching the ammo over to double-tap automatically.

The first projectile, a softer explosion, locks on to the heat signal of each respective craft, and a small burst pierces the armored plating. The second rocket follows mere millimeters behind the first and enters the newly made hole, announcing its arrival to the party with an inverted explosion that rends the crafts to vaporized particles. Tony soars through the plume of fire with a smirk, emerging back into the battlefield with flame trailing off the glimmering lines of his suit.

Just as it seems they may be able to keep the invasion at bay, the whole situation, once again, goes apeshit. A large, armoured worm-like creature tears through the portal, letting out a deep, primal roar. As it passes, dozens of Chitauri soldiers leap from its hide, attaching themselves to buildings and sliding down, laser rifles already primed and firing at the screaming people below.

Tony is frozen midair for a moment, gaping in unrestrained awe at the creature before him.

Cap’s voice sounds through his earpiece. “Stark,” he says, sounding just as breathless as Tony feels. “Are you seeing this?”

Tony shakes himself out of his stupor and begins heading towards the thing. “I'm seeing,” he says. “Still working on believing.” He swings around the creature, far enough back to be free from any damage. Then he stops, quickly scanning the streets. “Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?” There is a pause, and then, “Banner?” Tony curses and shakes his head. “Just keep me posted.” He takes a deep breath and primes himself to fly in closer. “JARVIS,” he says, flying parallel with the creature. “Find me a soft spot.”  


***  


“Hey Tony, we’ve got a situation,” Natasha’s voice crackles through his earpiece.

Tony rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I kinda got that from the whole ‘portal in New York thing’.”

She sighs and then grunts, two sharp reports sounding in his ear. “Another one. This isn’t a time for games, Stark.”

Tony grumbles but queues up a map on his visor. “Fine. Coming to you, Romanoff. What’s the issue?” He vaporizes two Chitauri on his tail and takes a steep dive, crashing the third into a metal statue in the park below.

“We’ve got some odd seismic activity up in the northern side of the island,” she says. “Whatever it is, it’s heading towards us. Fast.”

Tony stops. “Seismic?” He asks, mindlessly launching a volley of rockets at more incoming. “The hell do you mean seismic?”

Natasha lets out a frustrated groan. “If I knew, I wouldn’t have called it ‘odd’.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’m on it,” he says, and rockets north. The sight that greets him is unexpected. Which is saying something, as his current bar for ‘unexpected’ was a giant armored worm flying through an interdimensional hole in the sky. But this, pillars of rock shooting out of the ground and returning like some undulating spinal column, was unexpected. And-- he zooms in with the suit’s eye-cam. There was someone moving around at the center of it. What the fuck?

So, naturally, as Tony Stark is wont to do; he eloquently articulates his feelings. “What the fuck?”

“What is it, Tony?” Natasha asks.

“Language,” Steve says.

Tony watches the powered individual hop from one pillar to another, and sucks in a breath when a Chitauri craft nearly plows them off their latest perch. In one moment, he is switching directions to catch them before they can fall, and in the next, a spear of glimmering gray rock has split the ship and its rider in half. The kid is kneels, unharmed, inside a protective circle of rock that definitely wasn’t there before.

Tony utters another well-spoken ‘fuck’ before answering. “We’ve got some kid playing Avatar down here.”

“‘Avatar’?” Steve asks.

“Mutant? Alien? Inhuman?” Clint follows.

Tony scoffs. “How the hell am I supposed to know?” He asks. “Whatever they are, it looks like they’re on our side,” He says. Tony scans the ground once more, nods, and then jets away. “I’m leaving Avatar to it.” At the indignant sounds from some of his team, he cuts them off. “We need all the help we can get.” He’s turned and rocketed back towards the action when Steve’s voice stops him.

“Can you at least watch them for more than five seconds, Stark? Make sure they’re not a threat?”

Tony stops, sighs, and lets out a particularly violent barrage of energy at a distant Chitauri squadron. “Fine, sure, whatever,” he says, turning around once again. “I’ll go play babysitter. But when you’re getting swarmed with those alien bastards, don’t say I didn’t help.” When he approached the junction again, Avatar was still doing just fine.

They were coraling a group of civilians outside of a trashed diner with the help of a woman holding a jagged piece of glass in one hand and a Chitauri rifle in the other.

He nods in approval when Avatar hands a Chitauri pistol to a mother holding a child.

Avatar slips out of the group when the woman with the rifle begins issuing orders.

Tony follows them from a surreptitious distance across a few blocks and stops when they do, watching them sit against a wall with head in hands. A sympathetic smile pulls at the corner of his lips and he turns to fly away. “Yeah,” he says softly over the intercom. “They’re one of us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops I'm updating ahead of schedule  
but no one's reading this so I think I need to step it up


	3. You, breaking down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which shit goes _down_.__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning!!!  
Gore. Brutality. Graphic violence. (Violent) death of a child.
> 
> (((synopsis at the end. all of these are here because this _is_ a war. shit gets violent.)))__ Also, the formatting got updated since the last time I posted? So I'm sorry if you see any of the command codes or stuff seems wonky <3

You don’t see Ironman above you. It’s probably for the better; if you had seen him leave you without even an offer of help, he might’ve ended up crumpled next to the dead aliens. It’s all too much, you decide suddenly, back pressed into the cool brick of some abandoned office building. There’s an alien invasion. The sky is ripped open. The city is falling apart around you. There are screams and explosions and the smell of smoke and ozone and people are _dying_ and more are _already dead_. The street wavers before you and you close your eyes with a pained moan. Your sessapinae prickle for a moment, and it’s harder than it should be to pull yourself free from the ready and waiting earth.____

_ _ _It takes much longer than you would like to admit for you to get a handle on yourself. Sitting helps, and so does running through all the breathing exercises you can think of. In for four, hold for three, out for seven. Repeat. You sit pressed against the brick wall, the material cool under your back despite the warm May afternoon. It’s a wonderful day, now that you think about it. Warm, with a light breeze. You can almost pretend you don’t smell the smoke on it. If there weren’t alien aircrafts zipping through it, you would have admired the clear blue of the sky, and the smattering of brilliant white clouds across it. You close your eyes and try to ignore the bad. You try to ignore the smoke, the screams, the whirring of odd machinery through the air. You focus on the good. You focus on how the cool breeze curls around you, how some punk ass bird is still chirping merrily away, how the earth thrums reassuringly beneath you._ _ _

_ _ _It’s not enough. It is _just_ enough to refocus you, however, and you rise on unsteady legs. You thrust your awareness deep into the earth. You open your eyes. From where you’re standing, you actually can’t see any of the destruction. It puts you momentarily at ease. Then an alien craft zips by, and you blink. Then about fifteen more follow and you spin a defensive torus out of reflex. They don’t notice you, of course. Just one lonely ‘human’ cowering against a wall, but you’re ready all the same. And maybe it’s a good thing, because when a chorus of screams starts up from a few blocks away, you’re off and running before you realize you’ve moved.___ _ _

_ _ _ _ _Your mind is split in two but working in tandem. Half scans your surroundings, reactions on a hair trigger for any sudden movement, and the other half races through the ground like an oncoming tsunami. It grips, lets go, grips, lets go, always on one shaft of rock or the next. It’s like you’re playing musical chairs, you think with humor that might be hysteria. Always rushing through open spaces and slowing down when you pass a chair. You push yourself harder through places of soft strate, and unconsciously slow your pace to take reassuring hold of spikes of hard rock under your feet._ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _Soon, though, the music is over, and you round a corner to get nearly knocked off your feet by a blast of energy. A hot ray of _something_ whizzes above your head and you actually go down for a moment, dropping backwards onto your hands. You’ve shoved a jagged wall of fordham gneiss (you didn’t think you were _that_ close to Morningside Heights, but maybe that particular substrate extends farther than you thought) up through the blacktop in the half second it takes you to fall, and it spares you from the wave of shrapnel that would have otherwise shredded you. A thin sliver of metal makes it past, however, and it glances off your upper arm. You hiss in pain and your hand clamps down over the wound. The fact that it takes a moment for the blood to well beneath your fingers is worrying, but the flood of adrenaline that races through you erases the pain from your mind. You pull yourself back to your feet and peer around the wall you’ve made._____ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _There are three aliens taking potshots at a terrified group of civilians inside a Starbucks. Someone inside has a gun, but the aliens’ armor easily deflects the surprisingly accurate shots. You don’t realize you’re chanting ‘_fuck_’ under your breath until one of the aliens turns to face you. You drop to the ground when it swings its rifle in your direction. It lets loose a volley of energy shots that blow off the top of your barrier. Your swirling torus shunts the rubble away from you, but you can still feel the roiling wave of heat that washes over you. And it’s terrifying.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _The realization that you will probably die today finally slams into you, and you freeze. Pure, raw terror has turned every muscle in your body to stone. You find with awful, soul-crushing horror that you are utterly and completely unable to move. _This is it_, you think. _This is where it ends_._____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Then a wave of oddly powerful calm fills you. It’s the same calm confidence you feel when finally getting on stage. Where all performance anxiety drains from your body the moment you face the audience. In one moment, all of the anxiety that you could ever feel has somehow doubled, tripled, has gripped you with premature rigor mortis. And in the next, you are calm. Confident. Shoving a shimmering mica lance through the alien’s weird fucking mouth and out the back of its head._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Your nerves are intrinsically linked with the rock. You feel the creature struggle and thrash around you once, twice, and then you splinter the mica to slice through its brainstem and the alien goes still. You pull yourself from the rock and stagger backwards. The sudden jolt back into your purely physical senses tells you of the hot, sticky arterial spray that stretches a jagged line across your torso. You take several gulping breaths without realizing it, trying to suppress both the panic and nausea constricting your throat._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _The two other aliens stare at you. You suppose that, in a different situation, you would be interested in how easily shock is communicated across such foreign features. How easily you can read the “what the fuck” look on both of their faces. Now, though, you are in this situation, and you see the rifle of one alien slowly begin to swing towards you. So, you react. You let your torus explode outwards. The swirling ice races outwards at impossible speeds as you snatch every iota of heat and life from its expanding range._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _The alien raising its rifle goes first, metal armor first freezing then cracking as brittleness sweeps through it. The being inside is flash frozen less than a half second later, and the force of the icy blast forces the ice statue into its partner. Your ring of force collides with the second alien at the same moment, and it is knocked backwards from the overwhelming forces. You hear it start to scream, a horrible, grating noise that begins deep in its chest, but then that too is frozen and the two hit the ground. They shatter on impact, icy blue-purple chunks rolling away from you. You see a piece that looks suspiciously like a mouth, and then you are turning and vomiting onto the pavement._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _You become hyper-aware of the blood spattering your chest as burning bile claws its way up and out of you. You become hyper-aware of the smell of smoke and blood. You are too hot, too sticky. A nauseating warmth races through you like water on high tide. It swirls and eddies, building and _building_. You don’t even realize you’ve formed another torus until a few snowflakes are swept into your eyes. You blink furiously, but are broken from your panic. You straighten, wiping your mouth with one hand and wrapping the other close to your stomach. You let the torus dissipate, snowy winds breaking up and dissolving around you. You notice with disgust that your vomit has frozen, too, and you turn away from it.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _You turn away and are met with an arrow flashing past your face. Your tired, shock-addled _sessapinae_ are thrust into overdrive. You immediately drop your awareness into the earth, but the spike of schist stops several yards beneath you (lodged right in the middle of a water main, you think disparagingly) when you see an alien to your left drop, an arrow sticking skyward from its chest. Your head whips to your right so quickly something cracks.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _There’s a man sprinting towards a small gathering of civilians. You notice, with more shock that you should have (given, you know,, _aliens_), that he’s carrying a bow, a quiver strapped securely to his back. He cocks his head suddenly, turns, and has let loose an arrow before you’ve processed the motion. As the arrow flies, you become aware of the high humming of an approaching craft. You grab the schist once more, but then there is an explosion and the craft rains down in fiery pieces. You see the archer nod, satisfied. Did he do that? “What the fuck,” you murmur unhelpfully.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _The archer checks over the civilians that will let him approach. Others are too far gone in their shock to do anything but scream and stumble. You turn to stare at the flaming rubble. That dude just blew up an alien spacecraft. He blew up an alien spacecraft with a _bow and arrow_. You realize he had heard it coming before you did, had shot at the thing before you even knew it was there. What the fuck? You come back into yourself when you realize he’s approaching you. You tense, sinking your mind halfway into the earth.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _He slows his pace and carefully raises his hands in a placating gesture. He looks like he’s comforting a wild animal, you think, but then you realize that’s probably _exactly_ what you look like. You force your shoulders to relax and unclench your fists. He offers you a half smile and you can’t help but return it. He stops about a meter from you and takes you in. You suppose you’re quite a sight, surrounded by frosted asphalt and slowly thawing alien chunks.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Then he focuses on you and frowns. “You’re bleeding,” he says. He gestures to your arm, then to your face._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _You raise a hand and are surprised to find dried blood from an unnoticed cut to your cheek. It doesn’t even sting. You raise your eyebrows at him. “Manhattan’s on fire,” you reply_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ He looks around, at the still-burning wreckage and the plumes of smoke rising around the city, and inclines his head. “Touche,” he says. Then he starts and a hand flies to his ear. His gaze hardens. “Will you be okay down here?” He asks._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _You want to say no. You really do. You want to say _no, I can’t. Please get me out of here, please, please_ But you nod. “I can handle it,” you say quietly, even as your traitorous self-preservation brain is screaming at you that you definitely _can’t_. But you have to. You have to because this man, this archer who’s fighting off an alien invasion with a goddamn bow and arrow, has somewhere to be._____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _He narrows his eyes. “Are you sure?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _“You need to be somewhere else,” you say without really meaning to. “There’s a bigger fight somewhere in the city, and you need to be dealing with that.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _He searches you with his gaze for a long moment. Then, apparently finding what he was looking for, he nods. “Take care, kid,” he says._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Then, before you can protest, he has shot a fucking _grappling hook arrow_ up to the nearest building and is racing upwards. Robin Hood got an upgrade, you muse humorlessly, and then you pull yourself together.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

* * *

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _You’re not sure how long you wander after that. You’re lost in some sort of shock-induced dissociation. You make it far enough that you’re in a new part of Manhattan and you don’t remember how you got there. Your feet hurt, you’re more tired than you were before, and you’ve been existing at least half in the earth for the whole time. You pull your mind free and take a deep, centering breath_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ It’s fairly quiet where you end up. It seems like there’s already been an attack. The streets are empty of any sign of life, human or otherwise. The streets are torn, ruined by the razing of alien weapons fire. Several vehicles sit overturned, crushed and shattered by the force that threw them. Nearly every window within view has been blown in or otherwise smashed to pieces smaller than your hand. It doesn’t look like Manhattan anymore, not really. Everything is obliterated beyond recognition. So much has been rendered completely and absolutely broken that it all seems foreign to you. Nothing feels safe. Nothing feels like home. The cut on your cheek stings and you realize you’re crying. You swallow thickly and press your palms to your eyes. They are hot under your touch. Your hands shake against them. You are sobbing, then. It comes both inadvertently and unwelcomed._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _What happens next is both sudden and not so sudden at all. In both slow motion and all at once, there is an explosion. You crouch, hands still over your eyes. There is a sound like a swarm of locusts and you curl even further, hands moving over your skull and neck as the sound gets closer, _closer_. Shafts of schist begin to slide up around you, forming a protective barrier between you and the outside world. It’s too much. Too loud and too much and you just _can’t_. Air rushes over you, hot and strong and you know, you know it’s from a swarm of aliens. You feel the roiling heat pass overtop of you. You are curled at the top of a smooth decline, and the aliens land at the bottom of it. Even when you’re sure they’ve landed, you stay where you are, hyperventilating and shaking and still crying._____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _All that ends when a piercing wail floats up to you. Some sort of caretaker instinct overrides your panic with a vengeance. That was a child’s scream. A _wail_. And you see the child when you stand. You realize with sickening horror that you recognize the child. You recognize his mother as well. It’s the same pair that you gave the weapon to, the mother and her son. It’s them, and he’s screaming, and you think you see the mother look at you, eyes wide and more terrified than any you’ve ever seen. You think you see her look at you. You imagine your name screamed from her lips when an alien approaches in one, two, three long strides, and shoves the end of a jagged spear through her neck.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _You think you scream, then. Watching as she jerks backwards, losing her grip on the boy, her hands clawing helplessly at her neck. You think that this is the worst thing you could ever see. And then the tip of the alien’s spear carves a jagged tear through the child’s chest. The dying screams of his mother reverberate across the foreign blade. The alien crows a deep and guttural sound of victory and mocking and pulls back from the child with a sickeningly wet slide. The mother makes a desperate move towards the lifeless body, lurching once, twice, and then going still. The tip of her pointer finger rests against the child’s foot. The air shimmers around you and your gut twists. Boiling gorge rises to burn at the back of your throat. Your vision wavers, narrows, focuses. A wave of nauseating heat fills you and nearly bowls you over. You are hot in a cold, high way. The world smells like sweat and fear and smoke. The hot wind tastes like copper. All you can see is the small spot of contact between the two empty bodies. The final reunion of corpses. You stare._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _And then everything fades away._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _You plunge yourself into the earth. The molten, fiery riot of the underneath fills you, and, for once, it doesn’t feel foreign. It doesn’t feel hostile. It feels angry, sure. It always does. But this time, so do you. You spin your torus fine and tight, driving it down, down, _down_. Deeper into the roiling earth. The air around you whips and screams as you draw the heat from it, the grass beneath your feet crystallizing and turning black under your unforgiving frost. You are dimly aware of screams around you, the frantic scrambling of footsteps as the circle of frost grows wider, wider, fingers of life-sucking ice stretching out like greedy fingers. But you don’t care. All you see - all you _know_ \- is the ground, the ice, and the abominations of life in front of you. Finally, you reach what you were looking for. Deep into the strata, farther down than you think you’ve ever gone before. You reach down. And you pull. A low rumbling fills the vicinity. The aliens before you look at each other in confusion, raising their rifles. You almost laugh._____ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _And then you’re screaming._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _A giant pillar of basalt erupts from the ground before you. The asphalt cracks and sends deadly waves of shrapnel out around you. The pillar carries with it a spray of molten rock, crackling and hissing and bubbling as it’s exposed to the cool air. You break the thing off at thirty feet long and you are _lost_ in it. Lost in the roiling, deep, _fire_ of its earthen structure. You become one with your weapon, senses filled with lattices of mica and bedrock. You _relish_ it. You can sense its molecules vibrating with the contained fury you can already feel inside you. The contained fury that screams to erupt like the pillar. That screams to break free and rip and tear and burn and fight and _destroy_. So you let it._________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _The pillar, on its way up, spears through two of the flying vessels. An inhuman chorus of shrieks sound from the crafts the moment before their riders are pulverized by the impact. You watch the two machines erupt into flames, and then you send the pillar back down. The veritable army of aliens that have amassed below it try to scramble away, chitinous exoskeletons cracking against one another as they push and shove to escape the warpath. It’s a futile gesture. The pillar slams back into the ground. Not from the hole whence it came, but down into the panicking army. A sickening crunch accompanies the bone-rattling crash the pillar makes. It's not unlike crushing a cockroach beneath your shoe as a handful of the invaders succumb to the immensity of your destruction. You don’t allow even a moment of shock before you raise the pillar up once more. You send it crashing back into the ground. Then again. And again. And again. Your hands are outstretched in front of you, shaking and rippling with the force of the power you’re channeling. The water in the air around you condenses and freezes, whipping and stinging against your face. The dust begins to tinge a blue-black-purple, as the aliens beneath your assault are slowly ground into the earth._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _You stop. The basalt shaft hangs suspended in the air, a sudden quiet ringing over the area. The bottom of the shaft is coated in a thick sheen of the foreign blood._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _There is silence after that. Silence so complete and devastating that it rings in your ears. Your _sessapinae_ flex unconsciously and your bloody weapon sinks slowly back into the earth. You crouch so quickly that it seems more like a collapse. There is some semblance of comfort to be had in the quiet, surrounded by the low rock walls you pulled up when all of the crafts landed. It’s not enough, though. You don’t think anything will ever be enough again. You stare out over the carnage. The battlefield, you think, because that’s what it was. That is what this has become. A war. You gaze out across the wreckage of Manhattan. A war you don’t think you can win.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _A glass shattering screech rents the air above you. The silence is gone so swiftly and completely that you actually sway for a moment before looking up. Another armed worm swims in the sky above you, seemingly unaffected by the bursts of radiant light beaming from Iron Man’s palms. You clock its trajectory as right towards your makeshift safe-haven. Right towards you. Right in the range that the thing becomes a threat. A threat that you dispose of with a single thought._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__ __ __ __ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Four long mica swords slice upwards, rocketing up, up, their bases merging into schist and continuing skywards. Iron Man has barely enough time to shoot himself clear before the shafts carve through the armoured hide of the beast. It lets out a ghastly wail, the sound resonating and exploding the windows of the buildings around it outwards. The worm is flailing, now. Trying to escape from its earthen impalements, but its movements only serve to drive the spears deeper into its thick flesh. Blood of that same blue-purple begins to pour down your swords in ever-widening rivulets. The thing is still screaming, but its cries have turned distinctly hysteric. Still, it’s moving. And you can’t have that. You snap your head to the side, and the mica inside the beast explodes outwards, the silvery shards cutting it to shreds. Then you focus in on those shards, and burst them again. You split the rock inside the creature over and over, until there’s nothing but glimmering dust for you to weaponize. So you pull more from the ground. You send it up, _up_–  
and then blood trickles from your nose.  
The world blurs.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _And darkness follows._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Synopsis:
> 
> Reader throws _serious_ hands. You kill some aliens, have a couple breakdowns, meet Hawkeye (you are more shocked than you should be by the fact that he's fighting with a bow and arrow), and go absolutely batshit savage at the end and kill a shit ton of chitauri and one of their leviathans. And then you pass out.__
> 
> _  
_Thanks for the wait! Y'all will FINALLY be meeting the Avengers next chapter, so stay tuned!__  



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